Page 35 of Just Like the Brontë Sisters

Anna shrugged. “It’s interesting. At least she has passion. But I’d be worried about maintaining a consistent voice.”

I knew that would be the criticism, but how could I maintain a consistent voice when I hadn’t even found my own voice yet? I constantly found myself thinking with leftover nuggets from classic authors and I understood that any cleverness I had was borrowed, just like my skiing notoriety was simply a castaway from Jo Beth.

“Do you have suggestions for how I can be consistent?” I asked.

“Get rid of all the adjectives and adverbs,” said Kent, another member of our group. Deleting all the modifiers was always his answer for everything.

“Okay, but is Mary compelling, or do you just find her crazy?” I asked.

Anna’s subtle little eye roll was not lost on me. “I mean, it’s a romance novel. Aren’t the heroines, by definition, crazy?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Is the search for true love ever marked by sanity, or will it always end in either a loss of self, or a loss of life?”

There was uncomfortable laughter, like I’d inadvertently insulted someone’s religion, politics, or both. Then Anna took out her piece and just started reading. It was some literary mumbo jumbo about cats and the apocalypse and everyone loved it, yet they went ahead and dissected all its intricacies, because Anna wants to get it published by this fiction journal that nobody, except for the authors and the authors’ mothers, will ever read.

After the meeting was over and I was in the safety of my car, I nearly banged my head against the steering wheel. What did I think would happen, that the group would love my piece, that they would get it, that they would get me? It didn’t matter, not really, but if I can’t even fit into the literary crowd here in Black Diamond, what chance did I have at Cornell? I put the key in the ignition and headed home. No; I headed to my sister’s home. The place still belonged to Jo Beth, and most nights I could feel that the walls, floors, and furniture missed her. I missed her too.

When I walked through her door, glanced at my phone, and saw that Gavin had texted, wanting to come over, I texted back.

Not tonight.

If I couldn’t be with Jo Beth, it was better to be alone.